Friday, February 16, 2007

As regular Cru-blog readers will know, I am not a big fan of organised (or even disorganised) religion. One thing Richard Dawkins and I agree on is that children can't be defined as religious until they're old enough to make their own choice on the matter. We should never refer to a Christian baby or a Muslim baby. I also think we shouldn't cut parts of baby's bodies off for reasons other than medical necessity.

To be honest I'm not even sure we should allow adult men to undergo circumcision voluntarily. We don't allow people to have limbs or fingers removed just because they want to. If I started the cult of the Holy Digits and said all my followers had to have their little fingers cut off, people would soon have me up in court. Yet even when babies are DYING no-one makes a fuss about circumcision.

Now of course we could have the debate about whether some guys like being circumcised. They may do, although once you've gone there there's no going back so it's difficult to know. I have a friend who was circumcised for medical reasons as an adult who thinks that he lost some sensitivity and sexual enjoyment, but not much. At very least shouldn't we wait until adulthood and allow guys to choose for themselves?